Cons:

Some poet whose name I can't remember once wrote that the saddest words in the world are: "It might have been." No game in recent memory sums up those words better than Encore and Nival Interactive's S2 - Silent Storm. Silent Storm follows hard on the footsteps of squad-level turn-based strategy classics like X-Com and Jagged Alliance, and for a brief, shining moment, looked like it might join them in the pantheon of "strategy games that rule my world." Then I got deeper into the game and found instead an excellent title that reaches for the stars, but just barely makes it into the upper atmosphere.

I'd like to drive that point home again, lest the tone of this review convince strategy game fans that they don't want to pick up this game. The core gameplay -- the strategic engine, if you will -- of Silent Storm is beyond reproach. For those gamers unfamiliar with such titles, a turn-based squad-level game places you in charge of a small group of soldiers, each with a certain number of "Action Points." Every action, whether it's running, firing a weapon, or bandaging a wound, costs a certain number of points. Run out of points and your turn is over -- now the enemy gets to go. Play continues until all the soldiers die or you achieve your mission objectives. It's that simple.

When "While You Were Out" goes horribly wrong.

Most of the player's time in Silent Storm is spent in such missions -- in this case, a series of preset ones connected by a somewhat contrived story of secret weapons research being conducted during World War II. Each of these missions is well-conceived and designed, as well as being open to a variety of strategic approaches. The designers at Nival have wisely decided not to mess with classic gameplay design, meaning that if you've played this type of game before, you'll be able to slip into the game without much difficulty.

The real fun, though, comes from the new strategic considerations that Nival has thrown into the mix. The game sports an impressive physics engine that simulates the hardness of various objects and makes every object within the game destructible via the application of explosive force. That means that if you hear a group of soldiers walking on the floor above you, it's finally possible to shoot through the wooden flooring and take them out. Take out support structures in a house and the entire thing will collapse -- along with any poor unfortunates inside. I can't tell you how many fun new strategic options that opens up during play. I spent quite a few missions just shooting through walls and leveling buildings rather than taking chances on house-to-house fighting with small arms.

The game also sports an impressive ragdoll physics model. Similar to the one that won our honorary Lens Flare Award for 2003, this feature lets soldiers react realistically to impacts, bullet hits, and grenade explosions. I know, putting a feature like this in a strategy game could be compared to putting racing stripes on a John Deere, but when you watch some Nazi soldier fly through a window in a shower of glass and tumble "bonelessly" off an awning into the street, you really won't care. The feature doesn't affect gameplay much, but never underestimate the value of aesthetics in a game -- especially when they make it look this cool.